Using Artificial Intelligence in Legislative Services - Considerations from Society of the Clerks of the Table Africa Region Panel in Arusha/ Tanzania in May, 2024.
Authors: Luís Kimaid from Bússola Tech, Prince Kenneh from the Parliament of Sierra Leone and David Mulenga from the National Assembly of Zambia.
Reviewers: João Lima from the Senate of Brazil and Ari Hershowitz from Govable.
Summary
Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers transformative potential for parliamentary operations, much like the historical innovations of the printing press and the internet. AI can significantly enhance legislative services by automating tasks, supporting legislative drafting, and improving public engagement. Key opportunities include real-time transcription of parliamentary debates, drafting assistance, document digitisation, automated document distribution, and real-time translation. However, integrating AI also raises challenges related to accuracy, transparency, and compliance with procedural rules. Ensuring human oversight and continuous evaluation are crucial for responsible AI implementation. By carefully balancing innovation with democratic principles, parliaments can effectively harness AI to improve efficiency, accuracy, and public trust in legislative processes.
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved significantly and is now a powerful tool that can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of parliamentary operations. Much like the introduction of the printing press in the 15th century revolutionised the distribution and accessibility of information, and the internet transformed global communication and information sharing, AI presents a new frontier for parliamentary innovation. The implementation of AI in parliaments offers unique opportunities for automating tasks, supporting legislative drafting, and improving public engagement. However, it also raises important questions about transparency, accountability, and maintaining democratic integrity. This document, summarising discussions at the Society of the Clerks of the Table, Africa region panel, provides a detailed overview of AI's role in legislative services and outlines key considerations for its implementation.
Opportunities for AI in Legislative Services
Hansard:
AI-Driven Transcription: AI can transcribe parliamentary debates in real-time, ensuring accurate and timely records. It can also tag and categorise speeches, making it easier to search and reference.
Speaker Identification: AI can automatically identify speakers in debates, improving the accuracy and organisation of transcripts.
Legislative Drafting:
Drafting Assistance: AI can assist in drafting legislation by analysing existing laws and generating new bill drafts, ensuring consistency and comprehensiveness.
Amendment Management: AI tools can manage and analyse legislative amendments, highlighting similarities and potential conflicts, thus streamlining the amendment process.
Comparative Analysis: AI can compare different versions of bills and amendments, providing detailed reports on changes and their implications.
Historical Archives:
Document Digitisation: AI can enhance the digitisation of historical legislative documents through Optical Character Recognition (OCR), making them searchable and accessible.
Content Categorisation: AI can categorise and summarise historical documents, facilitating easier navigation and research.
Legislative Committees:
Document Distribution: AI can automate the distribution of legislative documents to appropriate committees, reducing manual errors and biases.
Meeting Summarisation: AI can summarise committee meetings, providing concise reports and action points.
Citizen Participation:
Public Comment Analysis: AI can analyse public comments on legislative proposals, identifying key themes and sentiments, and providing summaries for Members of Parliament.
Constituent Communication: AI can draft personalised responses to constituent inquiries, ensuring timely and relevant communication.
Parliamentary Website:
Content Aggregation: AI can organise and categorise content on the parliamentary website, improving user navigation and information retrieval.
Semantic Search: AI can enhance search capabilities on the website, providing more accurate and relevant results.
Legislative Research:
Research Assistance: AI can assist in legislative research by analysing large volumes of data, identifying relevant information, and providing summaries.
Data Analysis: AI can perform complex data analysis, uncovering patterns and insights to inform legislative decision-making.
Procedural Advice and Research:
Real-Time Procedural Advice: AI can provide real-time procedural advice during legislative sessions, assisting with complex procedural queries and research tasks.
Plain Language:
Simplification of Legislative Language: AI can simplify complex legislative language, making it more accessible to the public and to Members of Parliament, ensuring better understanding without losing legal precision.
Simultaneous Interpretation:
Real-Time Translation: AI can provide real-time translation of parliamentary debates and discussions, facilitating better communication in multilingual parliaments.
Challenges and Democratic Considerations
Accuracy and Transparency:
Accuracy: AI models can reflect existing inaccuracies in their training data or produce confabulations (hallucinations), leading to imprecise or incomplete responses. Ensuring high-quality data and incorporating human verification are essential to mitigate this risk.
Data Grounding: AI applications should ensure that data is secure and used responsibly. Parliaments must establish clear protocols for data access, storage, and processing, respecting privacy and confidentiality.
Transparency and Accountability: AI systems must be transparent, and their decision-making processes explainable, to maintain public trust and uphold democratic principles.
Compliance with the Rules of Procedure:
Regulatory Compliance: AI systems must adhere to parliamentary rules of procedure and operational guidelines to ensure responsible and effective use.
Human Oversight and Collaboration:
Human Review: AI should augment human capabilities rather than replace them. Human oversight is essential to ensure AI outputs are accurate and contextually appropriate. There should always be someone accountable for the review process.
Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging diverse stakeholders, including AI experts, ethicists, legal professionals, and the public, is crucial in developing ethical and oversight mechanisms.
Security and Data Privacy
Security: Parliaments must have a security system to ensure authenticity of the legislative data and procedures and its protection about the legislative process.
Guidelines for the usage of AI: Draft guidelines document for the usage of commercially available tools, and how to interact with them, include policies about sensitive and personal information.
Implementing AI in Legislative Services
Modular and Integrated Solutions:
Technological Integration: AI solutions should have a modular design but remain integrated with other parliamentary systems. For example, ensuring data compatibility between the drafting office and the Office of the Clerk.
Iterative Development: Start with small, well-contained projects and gradually expand, taking an iterative approach to AI implementation.
Training and Capacity Building:
Staff Training: Investing in training for parliamentary staff to work with AI technologies is vital for a smooth transition and effective implementation.
Collaboration and Sharing: Parliaments should collaborate and share use cases, problems, and solutions to mitigate risks and leverage AI's benefits.
AI in Digital Services:
Focus on User Satisfaction: AI strategies should enhance legislative services for parliamentarians, staff, and citizens, ensuring that technology facilitates rather than hinders parliamentary activities.
Proactive Evaluation: Continuous evaluation and adjustment of AI systems are necessary to keep applications relevant, effective, and aligned with ethical standards. Parliaments should be attentive to the integration of AI into simple day-to-day services like email and scheduling, which will soon become standard and impact everyday operations.
Key Considerations
AI technologies hold significant potential to transform legislative services in parliaments, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and public engagement. However, integrating AI requires a careful approach that balances technological innovation with procedural compliance and democratic integrity. By adopting a proactive and collaborative strategy, parliaments can leverage the transformative power of AI while maintaining transparency, accountability, and the effectiveness of democratic institutions.